Monday, March 6, 2017

It seems there are many books influenced by or based on Myths and Mythological Beings.

There are many different Mythology's and Mythological Beings recorded. Some are very popular and well known, others not so much. There are many similar beings, yet different depending on the culture it’s based in. The definition of Myth covers about anything in the Urban Fantasy/Fantasy realm to me.I’ve invited authors to share briefly the Mythological being or Myth that influenced their character(s) or story, or what their character(s) are based on influencing their books. Hosting here, one author and being or myth per week.

Where Weird Science Meets the Heroes Journey

There's a place where the boundaries of science and fantasy blur. Where the more you study one aspect of something, the less you know about the rest of it. Where something can be two things at once. Where simply observing what is happening changes the outcome. Where an object on one side of an impenetrable barrier can suddenly be on the other side. Where you can entangle two things and once they are separated, no matter how far apart, doing something to one instantly affects the other.

It's called quantum mechanics, describing actions at the smallest scale of matter. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is part of it. Light photons are both particles and waves. The Observer Effect changes what is observed. Tunneling can cause a particle to vanish from one side of that impenetrable barrier and appear on the other side. Entanglement links two particles somehow, instantly communicating changes in one to the other.

Einstein didn't like the quantum world, because it was so random and weird. Not neatly ordered like Einstein's universe, where math could work everything out in advance and predict outcomes. Einstein spent the last part of his life trying to prove it wasn't right, arguing that "God does not play at dice." The physicist Niels Bohr responded that he wished Einstein would "stop telling God what to do."

We observe these things in experiments, but we have no idea why they work the way they do. How can something be both a particle and a wave, and how can a single particle interfere with itself as if it formed many waves? Einstein labeled entanglement "spooky action at a distance," pointing out that there wasn't any explanation for what was happening. We know it happens. We don't know how. We do know that the quantum world is a place of probabilities, in which even an electron doesn't occupy any particular spot, just a sphere of probable places it can be all at once.

But it's bigger than even that. Quantum mechanics tells us that nothing is real. Honest. It says exactly that. One of the big foundations of modern science declares that everything is wave functions and probabilities, a universe of illusions that our senses pretend to see and understand. Sounds like fantasy, doesn't it?

What does that have to do with writing fantasy? Fantasy portrays things happening in the larger world that actually occur in the quantum world, and if quantum mechanics is right (and even Einstein couldn't prove it wrong) the whole universe is just something we create every time we measure something. What if that quantum weirdness could somehow could be generated on a much larger scale and play out in the larger world, occasionally causing, say, an object to be somewhere else than where it should be? To link two people far from each other so one is aware of what happens to the other? To make things that are obviously this also be that at the same time?

Thinking about that is one of the things that led to my Pillars of Reality series, where Mages see the world about them as an illusion. And if that world is made up of illusions, why can't other illusions be created for a short time? The illusion of a door in the illusion of a wall. The illusion of a dragon. Not real, but temporarily just as "real" as the rest of the world. Which is why the Mages say "nothing is real." And why the engineers in that world, the Mechanics who believe in solid objects and reality, don't like Mages very much.

It also led to The Sister Paradox, the story of a teenage boy, an only child, who suddenly finds out he has a sister even though he's never had a sister. She ends up in the wrong world thanks to something like tunneling, where her presence begins to cause problems because her brother is still linked to his non-existent sister. Her world has unicorns and dragons because that's the way everyone sees things there. But she really belongs here, with a brother who has to be convinced that a sword-wielding sister raised by unicorns should be part of his family.

About Author:
Jack Campbell (John G. Hemry) writes the New York Times best-selling Lost Fleet series, the Lost Stars series, and the "steampunk meets high fantasy" Pillars of Reality series. His most recent books are The Sister Paradox, Vanguard (the first book in The Genesis Fleet), and Daughter of Dragons.

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About Me:

I'm happily married with a son, working through the day undercover as a book keeper in the mundane paper shuffling. But by night I enjoy journeying through fantasy worlds created by others and of my own. I read Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Dystopian, some Science Fiction, Paranormal and all in YA as well.

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Quotes from Books, which caught my eye...

"It's always Ragnarok. Regular mortals have the power to blow the world sky-high and all the major supernatural factions can do the same. The thing is, though, as long as people want to live then you're going to have people stepping in the way of those who want to do something to blow us up. That's the only way you can endure it."Ben Talbot, By C.T. Phipps in Esoterrorism

"Be that as it may, we were--and no doubt, still are--held under scrutiny, with that whole Phoenix Society brouhaha. It is imperative we remain on our best behaviour, a feat that you did not exactly manage effortlessly with your shenanigans in Edinburgh." Wellington Books, By Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris in The Jaus Affair

"Remember this always: the fly, even in paradise, must always exist on shit."By Frances Pauli from The Fly in Paradise

"'In hundreds of years,' she continued, voice darker and sober now, 'I've only let myself love two people. You don't have that kind of time, though. You're mortal. You don't get to make a lot of mistakes before you kick it and if you wait, you get screwed over.'"By Skyla Dawn Cameron from Hunter

"...But I don't want you to be afraid to take risks. If it's worth it...If the person in his eyes is the person you want to be, the person you know you could be...then don't be scared..."By Nicole Peeler from Tracking the Tempest

"We are what we choose to be, girl," she said. "Let others determine your worth, and you've already lost, because no one wants people worth more than themselves..."By Peter V. Brett from The Warded Man.

"There are no honorable causes. There is no good or evil. Evil is only what we call those who oppose us."By Michael J. Sullivan from Nyphron Rising.

"That we are both right. One truth doesn't refute another. Truth doesn't lie in the object, but in how we see it."By Michael J. Sullivan from Nyphron Rising..

"Death is real, irreversible, and awful. Do you want some advice? Don't wait until you're dead to try to communicate. Do it now. You still have a chance. Not a great one, but a better one than you will have. If you think it's hard to get your point across now, and that no one really understands what you're about, just try it when you're dead." By Alexander Jablokov from Brain Thief.

"I wasn't running now so much as stumbling quickly, panting like a geriatric lion." By Nicole Peeler from Tempest Rising.

"Watch for the ones who leave your mouth hanging open. Study them, find out what they love and what they fear. Dig the treasure out of their soul and hold it to the light." He leaned in even closer now, so that Neb could smell the wine on his breath. "Then Be like them."By Ken Scholes from Lemantation.

The truth, the Seventeenth Gospel said, is a seed planted in a field of stones beneath a stone and guarded by snakes. To have at it, be strong enough to move the stone, patient enough to dig the hole and fast enough to dodge the viper's fang.By Ken Scholes from Lamentation.

I took a deep breath, "I took the nahlrout because I didn't want to faint. I needed to let them know they couldn't hurt me. I've learned that the best way to stay safe is to make your enemies think you can't be hurt." It sounded ugly to say it so starkly, but it was the truth. I looked at him defiantly.By Patrick Rothfuss from The Name of the Wind.

"We can be strong in the face of kings and priest, my lady," Ashe replied, "but to live is to have worries and uncertainties. Keep them inside, and they will destroy you for certain-leaving behind a person so callused that emotion can find no root in his heart."By Brandon Sanderson from Elantris.